Archive for the ‘Documentary’ Category

First Night, Capitalism: A Love Story, Venice Film Festival
By Geoffrey MacNab
Monday, 7 September 2009

Michael Moore’s brand of populist polemics had more of a sense of burning urgency during the Bush era than it does now. His new film tub-thumps against the evils of corporate capitalism in America. It’s a message we’ve all heard before in the wake of the economic collapse, the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the bank bailouts.

However, he delivers it in such rousing and entertaining fashion that he carries us with him. This may be a documentary but it has the same uplifting, folksy feel as old Frank Capra movies of the 1930s in which an American everyman (James Stewart or Gary Cooper) would take on the big, bad world of Washington or Wall Street.

The film opens by comparing the contemporary US to the Roman Empire in its terminal days of decline. Reality TV and wrestling, Moore argues, are the new equivalent to the “bread and circuses” during the time of the Caesars.

Does your physician wear a head scarf because of religious beliefs? How does an American teenager who practices Islam juggle hectic teen life with religious respect? Are you an American Muslim who has a close friend who is not, or are you a non-Muslim with friends who practice Islam? What can you learn from each other?
We’re offering a $20,000 Grand Prize for the best new and creative short video that reflects the American Muslim experience. Everyone in the U.S. is invited to compete, regardless of race or religion, so grab a camera, pick an assignment, read our online tips, and get filming.

The UMMA Community Clinic is the first free standing Muslim Free Clinic in America. The mission is to promote the well-being of the underserved by providing access to high quality healthcare for all regardless of ability to pay.

Background

The University Muslim Medical Association was started in 1990 by UCLA graduate and medical students in collaboration with Charles R. Drew University. From the start, the goal of the organization was to establish a free clinic in medically underserved South Central Los Angeles. With the administrative and logistical support of UCLA, Drew School of Medicine and L.A. City Councilperson, Rita Walters, the UMMA secured $1,383,000 in grants to make its vision into a reality.

The clinic, which has been operational since 1996, was established by the UMMA as a vehicle for the Muslim community, as well as people from all backgrounds, to provide community service to the public at large. The organization, which has achieved federal non-profit tax exempt status, works in tandem with a multitude of institutions and organizations to achieve its noble goals.

Ninety-percent of the UMMA Community Clinic’s patients are from a three mile radius around the clinic. The clinic sees an average of 170 patients weekly and has a patient population of nearly 15,000 individuals who have logged about 21,000 visits.

Nasfim Haque is a film-maker at the BBC, conceiving program ideas and working as a producer/director. A Cambridge graduate, she joined the BBC in 2003, and her film projects have included “A Muslim in Wales: Qu’ran and Country” – she herself is Cardiff-born and of Bengali heritage.

In 2006 she won a BBC competition for first-time directors for her film “Don’t panic, I’m Islamic”, on attitudes towards Muslims in Britain. Nasfim notes that “as a Muslim myself, I feel Islam has recently been saddled with an image problem, quite unfairly in my opinion, so I wanted to twist this around to ask the real questions about religion in secular society.”

A series of intimate, 10-minute portraits, explores the lives and beliefs of six young people whose usual places of worship are beautiful and historic mosques across the Muslim world. The films accompany them as they leave their homes and families, follow them as they travel to Saudi Arabia, and share their responses to the culmination of their journey of a lifetime – the pilgrimage to Mecca, where the prophet Muhammed was born.

Within decades of the death of Muhammed, Islam spread fast and its history can be traced through the flowering of exquisite Muslim architecture. Over the next few hundred years, fabulous mosques from Spain to Iran, and from Turkey to Mali formed a focus of Muslim life, as they continue to do today. The Seven Wonders of the Muslim World starts its journey at six of these locations and completes it at the mosque towards which all practising Muslims turn when they pray.

The seven wonders

1. The Grand Mosque in Mecca is the largest mosque in the world. At its centre is the Kaaba, a cubic building covered in a gold-embroidered black cloth towards which Muslims turn as they pray. Every year, millions of people perform the Hajj – the pilgrimage during the 12th month of the Islamic year – and many others make the pilgrimage at other times of year, which is called the Umrah.